Have to come up with 1500 words by the end of the day? Stuck for ideas? Recycle one of these:

1) Is X the new Y?

Pick a person. Compare them to somebody they’re not. Point out some similarities. Point out a few differences. Realise the premise is ridiculous. End with a rhetorical question about something else entirely.

2) Is X the future of Y?

Pick something that is not useful to the present of Y. Do not explore Y’s current situation in even cursory detail. Talk about X like it’s totally revolutionary. Use the word “paradigm” about five times. Avoid committing to an assessment of X’s usefulness. Get all your quotes from people who have spent their entire careers working with X, not Y. Do not look at anything else that has been hailed as the future of Y. Conclude that only time will tell.

3) The best X of all time

Take something that defies objective measurement. Find nine more of them. Rank them. Defend this ridiculous enterprise on the grounds that you’re stimulating debate.

4) It’s the end of an era

Pick somebody that just died. Compile a list of people who shared similar attributes and are also dead. Write earnestly about their work. Do not mention anyone who’s still alive. Use the expressions “never again,” “for the last time,” and “died with him.” Bonus points for getting “final curtain” into the last paragraph.

5) It’s the beginning of the end

Pick something bad that happened. Explore a hypothetical world in which this happened every day, assuming that it’s a trend that will continue indefinitely. Only seek comment from stakeholders who stand to lose from this scenario. Avoid mentioning anything good that happened recently. Defend this approach on the grounds you couldn’t find any, and balanced reporting is supposed to be easy.

6) They don’t make X like they used to

Pick an extraordinary dead person and act as if they were typical of their generation. Compare them to a set of living people selected to support the premise that all living people lack the attributes you so celebrate in the dead one.

7) Imaginary doom averted

Pick something that didn’t happen and talk about how bad it would have been if it had happened.

8) X horribly mistreated under contract with Y

Find somebody to complain about the consequences of a business arrangement that they entered into as an adult. Enhance the dramatic sense of injustice by acting as if they signed their contract for artistic reasons with no expectation of personal gain.

9) Is X relevant/elitist/overpriced/whatever?

Behaving as if this is an important question that affects the world, argue about the truth of a single absurdly reductionist statement that applies a single adjective to an entire art form.

10) X has cancelled a bunch of stuff. What does this mean for Y?

Find somebody sick. Look up their job description. Point out that each aspect of their job now needs to be done by somebody else. Act like this is insight.